Ethanol from nipah palm project cancelled

Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali confirmed that the National Biofuel project on a 1,000-hectare site at Trong near Taiping, Malaysia, to be developed by Pioneer Bio Industries Corporation Sdn Bhd (PBIC), has been stopped. PBIC, which has a patent to produce bioethanol from the sap of the nipah mangrove palm, was supposed to invest RM1.4 billion (US$402 million) to build a refinery and related facilities at the Trong location and it was to have been opened by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi last April. According to Tajol Rosli, the state government is ready to consider a project to build a new township, Bandar Baru Trong, on part of the 1,000-ha site that had been allocated for the biofuel project. Reasons for cancellation of the highly publicized project were not disclosed. (August 15, 2007)